


The Grand Portage Murderess

by RedLlamas



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Crying, Cuddling & Snuggling, Fake Marriage, Friendship, Huddling For Warmth, Hurt/Comfort, Ice Cream, Kissing, Love Confessions, M/M, Minnesota, Murder, Panic Attacks, Pet Names, Pillow Fights, Platonic Kissing, Supernatural Elements, Winter, but they still think it's platonic, hand holding, until they realize it's not!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:26:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25142347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedLlamas/pseuds/RedLlamas
Summary: On this week's episode of BuzzFeed Unsolved: Supernatural, Ryan and Shane investigate the murders at Grand Portage, Minnesota.
Relationships: Ryan Bergara/Shane Madej
Comments: 19
Kudos: 195





	The Grand Portage Murderess

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Español available: [La Asesina de Grand Portage](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28623894) by [RedLlamas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedLlamas/pseuds/RedLlamas)



> thank u [Yesi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/uneventfulhouses) for betaing!!!

"This week on Buzzfeed Unsolved, we're gonna be investigating the Grand Portage Murderess as part of our on-going investigation into the question: are ghosts real?"

Shane, on cue, shakes his head.

“Minnesota! We don’t get to go up there a lot, very beautiful country,” Shane says jovially.

“Yeah, they’ve got those rivers, forests, and the occasional murderers,” Ryan supplies.

“Sounds fun!” Shane says, spreading his hands.

"Let's jump in:

Priscill Reilly was born on April 17, 1826 in Forest Lake, Minnesota. She came from a poor, austere Christian family, and was married off to Amos Swader, an older lumberjack with a stable income, in 1841. They had their first daughter, Clara, on May 8, 1843, and their second, Maud, on March 27, 1846.

When jobs were starting to get difficult to find, Amos decided to move the family up north to Grand Portage in 1850, as there was an untapped forest that he could find contracts for timbering. All seemed well, but soon enough, trouble started to arise.

Priscill had proven herself to uphold the traditional Christian values she had been raised with, as she was loyal to her husband, looked after their children when Amos was away, and is described as being a devout believer, attending mass every Sunday. Reading as a perfectly good wife, it comes as a surprise that Amos had cheated on her with a woman named Beulah Olson, who was a lot younger than she was.

how young are we talking here

well...

she’s like, what, 24, 25 now?

yeah, she’s 24 now

and amos is?

amos is 45

Shane nods, looking at the table in front of him as he gently sways. “Okay,” he begins, “So the mistress, Beulah.”

“Beulah, yeah.”

“How young are we talking here?”

“Beulah is…” Ryan rechecks his script. “18 years old.”

Shane grimaces at that, eyebrows scrunching tightly. “Yikes.”

“Yeah, yikes! This guy is gross!” Ryan agrees, voice getting higher as his indignation shines through.

“Majorly gross!” Shane says, matching Ryan’s intensity, turning in his chair to look at him.

“This guy’s going out with a girl who could be his daughter,” Ryan says, waving his hand.

“Yeah.”

Both have very deep and troubled frowns.

“Eugh.”

“Anyways:

Priscill was obviously very disturbed by the affair, and when she got the chance, she told Amos her worries and anxieties. Amos didn’t listen to her, and became angry at her. In later diary entries, Clara recounts that she remembers her childhood as being, quote, “rife with conflict and anguish,” end quote. She remembers seeing her mother crying a lot, her father being absent most of the time, and when he was around, he’d take his frustrations out on Priscill.

damn

yeah this sucks

poor kids, man

“Yeah, life was definitely tough for them,” Ryan says.

Logging was usually done in the winter, as the snow allowed roads for sleighs to carry the logs, and the logs could be floated downriver. Amos went back to work in August, and a very distraught Priscill took the chance to take an axe, find Beulah, and kill her. Priscill then dragged her body into Lake Superior. When Amos went out, seeking Beulah’s company, he didn't find her, and when he questioned Priscill about her, she responded with, quote, “Your whore is probably wrapped up around another seasonal client,” end quote.

WOW! (wheeze) hoooly shit!

yeah

damn priscill!

so basically, priscill waits until amos goes out to work, she thinks, “oh he’s out working, i can exact my revenge,” and goes out and kills the mistress

jesus... hats off to her, though

Ryan knits his eyebrows together. “What?”

“Yeah, you know,” Shane explains, lifting up his hand to emphasize. “She killed this girl, and then when her husband asks her about it, she responds with a really baller line.” He ends it by clapping his hand on the table.

Next to him, Ryan is looking at him with a completely baffled expression. He opens and closes his mouth like a fish out of water, and Shane just sits there cooly. He even has the audacity to take a sip of his coffee.

Ryan looks back at the camera.

Amos got a new girlfriend a month later in the form of 22 year old Myrtle Dahl. When Priscill got wind of this, she once again picked up her axe and killed her, also dumping her body into Superior. It’s not until October 20th, 1850, that Priscill caught Amos in the act with a prostitute. That very night, she killed them both, and dragged their bodies to Lake Superior.

“Man, she really… liked that lake, huh.”

“Grand Portage is like, right next to it.”

“It is?” Shane asks, raising his eyebrows.

“Yeah, just like, a walk down.”

“Huh, okay.”

Priscill was never a suspect for the disappearances of Beulah Olson or Myrtle Dahl. This could be due to the fact that they were known as harlots.

_ that _ sucks

yeah, they’re people, c’mon

However, Priscill  _ was _ taken into questioning when her husband and his prostitute disappeared. The police discarded her as a suspect, since she started crying over her lost husband, telling the officers that she missed him dearly. The officers assumed that such a loyal wife wouldn’t be able to carry out any misdeeds.

Shane starts giggling at that. Ryan patiently waits for them to subside.

“You done, big guy?”

“Yeah.”

Priscill continued to live in Grand Portage with her two daughters until they married, during which time there were no reported disappearances or murders, until the day Clara visited her mother in 1869, crying about what she had discovered about her husband, James. It appeared that James had been sharing correspondence with a woman named Mae Hackett for several years now, and it seemed that their relationship was a sentimental one. This angered Priscill, as she had enjoyed a pleasant relationship with him despite her wariness of men, especially married ones. Priscill then went down to Maple Hill where he lived with her daughter, and killed both James and Mae.

Priscill would continue living rather quietly in Grand Portage. She’d make visits to a now widowed Clara, and it is reported that she would kill any married man she came across on her journey that she suspected of being unfaithful.

It happened that a few years later, Maud – who still lived in Grand Portage with her family – began to suspect of her mother’s strange guarded behavior, and eventually tipped off the authorities about her mother’s murders when she saw Priscill’s axe standing by the shed, still, quote, “dripping blood, the droplets bouncing on the fresh snow,” end quote.

jesus that’s descriptive

yeah, I don’t like that

When the police arrived at Priscill’s house, she attempted to run away, reaching for her axe, but the cops shot her down, killing her. Priscill Swader died on November 22, 1873, and was buried three days later. After the light has been cast on her crimes, many townsfolk report seeing her appear along the roads at night, axe in hand. Visitors to her house also report feeling a restless spirit, citing her as the origin.

After reading from the script, and recording their last thoughts on the matter, Shane and Ryan prepare to depart for Range Regional Airport, located in Hibbing, Minnesota. It was going to be a six hour flight, give or take, and seeing as how they’re the seasoned plane flyers that they are, they stay up the entire flight over either making scary faces at each other or annoying, weird noises at each other that make the flyers behind them admonish them. They struggle to contain their giggles, and eventually manage to nap for a little while.

They arrive in Hibbing at an early hour, and ask TJ to take the scenic route as they drive up to Maple Hill. TJ just looks at them, and drives the preprogrammed route. The team stops by at several diners, and they eat their fill. Ryan takes lots of pictures.

About halfway to Maple Hill, Shane asks, “Hey, can we go to Brainerd?”

“Brainerd?” TJ asks from up front. They’re near the coast of Lake Superior, entering Schroeder.

“Yeah, Brainerd. From  _ Fargo _ . You’ve seen  _ Fargo _ , right, Teej?”

Ryan holds out his can of Planters cashews to him, and Shane takes some.

“Of course I’ve watched  _ Fargo _ , but what does that have to do with anything?”

“Look at that,” Mark points out to their left. There’s an old building, with several people milling about in front of it. It looks important. Ryan snaps a picture, leaning into Shane’s space to get to the window.

“Brainerd has Paul Bunyan in it,” Shane answers.

“Oooh, the statue of Paul Bunyan with Babe?” Mark supplies. 

Shane snaps and points at him, exclaiming excitedly, “That’s the one!”

“Shane, Brainerd is two hours away from Hibbing, and not in this direction. It’s back over there,” TJ says, pointing with his thumb back behind them.

Shane unconsciously looks back at the road behind them, and then frowns at himself. He sits back in place, picking out more cashews from Ryan’s hands.

“You know, Brainerd doesn’t actually have that statue,” Ryan pipes up. He leans forwards to offer some cashews to Mark, who takes some.

“What?” Shane asks, looking over at Ryan. Ryan meets his gaze.

“Yeah, the Paul Bunyan statue? Isn’t in Brainerd. What’s interesting is that there’s this amusement park just outside of Brainerd, right? It’s called Paul Bunyan Land, and they’ve got this  _ huge _ 26 foot tall statue of Paul, and like, 40 rides that you can go on.”

Shane looks at him, digests the information. He blinks three times in rapid succession. He turns back to face TJ and taps him on the arm.

“Hey, c’mon man, let’s go to Brainerd and see Paul Bunyan!”

“No.”

“Why not!”

“Because we’re going to Maple Hill so that you can do your job, and so that I can do mine!”

Shane slumps back in his seat, scoffing. “Whatever.”

Ryan grins at him, and says, “We can’t even go, logistically. Paul Bunyan Land only opens from Memorial Day to Labor Day.”

Shane glares at him. “Thank you for that bit of information, Ryan.”

The car fills with Ryan’s wheezes.

Several naps and a bag of cashews later, TJ brings them to the bed and breakfast that they’ll be staying in. Once TJ and Mark leave their things in their rooms, the group decides to sightsee in the town to get some scenic footage before their actual investigation begins. A small town, but very nice. The road towards it was lined on either side with leafy trees, many bare but still with their orange foliage. There were several farms here and there, the cows in the distance not going unnoticed. When they rolled into town, they passed by a tall church, and could see a large wooden lodge in the distance.

Once the clock hits 6:30, they shift into work mode, and head down to Clara Wipson’s old house. Shane and Ryan strap on their chest mounts, grab their handhelds, and wait for Mark to get his cables in order before heading in. Once his camera lights up green, they begin their typical intro:

“Here we are at Clara Wipson’s former house, Clara Wipson being the oldest daughter of Priscill Swader,” Ryan begins.

“Indeed. This is a very well-structured house, look at it!” Shane says, gesturing to the loghouse, the exterior still bearing its bark, giving it a rugged appearance. There were windows on either side, their hewn edges still intact after so many years. Its roof was covered in snow.

“Looks like something Lincoln would’ve made.”

“Yeah, and actually, before we go in, I had an idea,” Ryan says, holding out his hand to stop Shane.

“Oh?”

“So, you know how Priscill didn’t trust married men? Since her husband kept having affairs?”

“Yes, I do recall,” Shane said, nodding.

“I’ve read several reports that the married men who go visit her haunts, they’ve said that they feel like someone’s stalking them. Or even attacked them!”

“Wow, sounds harsh.”

“Yeah, so: since Priscill doesn’t like married men, and has a tendency to attack them…”

Shane lifts an eyebrow at him. “Yeah?”

“I thought that we should be married.”

Shane quirks a smile at that, laughter escaping him. “Like,  _ married _ married?”

“No, like, look I bought these, and–” Ryan starts shuffling his bag around to his front, rifling through it. His face lights up when he finds a small pull-string bag, and holds it out for Shane to hold. Shane takes it, keeping it at an arm’s length as Ryan fixes his things again. When Ryan takes it back, he opens the bag and takes out two metallic rings, and holds them up for them to see.

Shane is still smiling, now with raised eyebrows. “Where did you get those?” Behind the camera, Mark is trying to stay still and quiet as he holds the camera, laughter shaking him.

Ryan is also struggling to stop giggling as he tries to answer with, “From Claire’s.”

“You’re proposing to me with rings from Claire’s?!” Shane asks, indignant at the thought.

“No! This is like, when you’d get married in the playground during recess in elementary!”

“Oh, so like, fifth grade married?”

“Yes. Like fifth grade married. Even though I don’t remember anyone in my class getting married, I think we were all ‘too mature’ for that at that point.”

“Yeah, okay Ryan, but: we need a minister,” Shane points out, then turns to stare pointedly at Mark.

“You want me to marry you guys?” Mark asks.

“Yeah!” Ryan and Shane say.

“It’s a great idea, come on, Mark, recess marry us,” Shane says. “Ry, give me a ring, we’ll put them on each other.”

“Oh, we’re going the entire playground way?” Ryan asks, handing over a ring.

“Yes we are, Ryan, because I am nothing if not committed to the theatrics,” Shane says, then looks at Ryan’s hands. Shane slips on the ring, and Ryan does the same to him.

“Mark, it’s your turn,” Shane tells him. They’re both looking at him expectantly.

“Um, I haven’t been to a playground wedding in a long while, so uh, I guess hold hands?”

Ryan and Shane fumble around a bit with how they should hold hands for this most sacred event, and just hold each other’s hands as in greeting. Mark places his hand on top of theirs, and says, “I now proclaim you husband and husband!” He then moves them down, and takes his hand away with a flourish.

“Alright, let’s do this!” Ryan says.

“Yeah, up top!” Shane says, raising his hand. They share an epic high-five.

“This is so stupid,” Mark whispers, but can’t help the smile on his face. “I’m gonna go get ready to get you guys from the inside.” And off he went to do just that.

“You know what you should’ve done for this?” Shane asks as they wait for Mark to get in position.

“What?”

“Shoulda gotten ring pops.”

Ryan opens his mouth in shock at the realization. “Oh fuck, man!”

Shane laughs at his reaction, then asks, “Okay, so, how are we gonna convince these ghosts that we’re married?” Mark is struggling to keep the door open, and is currently trying to find a solution for that.

“Uh, I don’t know actually. I didn’t think you’d be down for this, to be honest,” Ryan admits. He’s lost in thought now. He hadn’t really thought this through that much.

“...Maybe we can do coupley things?”

Ryan turns to him, raising an eyebrow. “Like what?”

Shane shrugs, looking up to his left as he thought. “I don’t know. What do married couples do that lets you know they’re married even if you didn’t have that information beforehand?”

They stand there, thinking for a bit.

“We could hold hands?” Ryan tries.

“Oh, yeah. We can also call each other by pet names.”

“Pet names? Like how I call you ‘big guy’?” Ryan asks, a smile teasing on his lips.

Shane looks at him then, grinning at that. “Yeah! I could call you ‘fun-sized’ for a change, as well.”

“ _ Fun-sized? _ ” Ryan asks, not indignantly but rather… excitedly. Shane would be calling him fun-sized. It makes his heart swell, though he doesn’t know why and isn’t planning on thinking about it.

Shane waves his hand, his cheeks pinking as he looks away. “Yeah, yeah, we’ll workshop that.”

“Okay,” Ryan says. “We can just do normal couple stuff we’d do with partners.” Shane nods.

Mark waves at them, and they start ghost hunting.

As they explored the Wipson residence, they called out to Clara Wipson, James Wipson, Mae Hackett, and the guest of honor, Priscill Swader. There was a lot of silence from them.

“Baby, they’re not here,” Shane said.

“Yes, they are!” Ryan insisted.

“Okay, honey, don’t worry, we’ll catch these ghosts soon enough,” Shane assured. The look on his face clashed with his soft words. Ryan could only glare at him.

“Thank you. Anyways, Clara, James, if you’re here, I’m gonna use something that might help you communicate with us better…”

As they approached Covill, Ryan leaned forward to tell TJ, “Pull up here, by the side of the road.”

“We’re here?” TJ asked, but pulled off nonetheless.

“Yeah,” Ryan said, sitting back and grabbing his ghost hunting gear.

“Oooh, what’ve you got planned for us?” Shane asks, hand on the door. TJ parks the car, and Shane, Ryan, and Mark climb out. Ryan immediately shivers when he steps outside, looking around and noticing all the snow that’s accumulated. He holds out a hand, and feels soft flurries fall onto his palm.

“It’s snowing,” he says.

“Sure is, Ry,” Shane says as he stretches. He swivels his hips around, leans side to side, managing to crack a joint.

“Okay,” Ryan begins. He sees Mark start up his camera, so he starts walking down the road, Shane in tow. “I asked Teej to stop here because I read up on stories that say that Priscill can actually be seen haunting the road from Maple Hill to Grand Portage.”

“The entire road? The entire way?” Shane asks.

“Yeah, the entire way.”

“Then why’d we stop near that city?” Shane points ahead of them, where they can see some lights.

“It seems that Priscill is attracted to places where there’s lots of people, a.k.a., where lots of married men are.”

“Ahh, so we’re luring her out here.”

“Exactly. Let’s walk a while, see if we can see her, or any of her victims.”

“Oh, the guys get to show up?” Shane walks over to the side a bit, inspecting something or other on the ground. He eventually waltzes back next to Ryan.

“Sometimes, other ghosthunters like us have picked up on male presences here,” Ryan says. It’s getting colder outside, and a thought crosses Ryan’s mind. He struggles with it for all of two seconds before reaching for Shane’s arm, and hooking their arms together. Shane looks down at him, and pulls him closer, murmuring, “Getting cold?”

“Mhmm,” Ryan hums, and scans the area for any activity with the EMF meter.

“That’s okay. You can sap all of my warmth.”

Ryan laughs at that. They walk a few yards more, then Shane stops them, looking at Ryan seriously. “I think we should stop walking now.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really, you’re turning blue on me. C’mon,” Shane says, waving down TJ to drive up where they’re at. They’re soon seated back in, Ryan shivering from the temperature switch, and holds tightly onto Shane as they continue their drive. Shane rubs his shoulder, keeping him close.

When they arrive in Grand Portage, the sky is ablaze with the twinkling of thousands of stars. It’s truly a magical sight, until Ryan starts cursing up a storm when he steps out of the car and into the freezing cold.

Shane laughs at him, wrapping him up in a hug. Shane starts rubbing his shoulders.

“Ryan, c’mon, it’s not that bad.”

“Fuck you, Madej.” Ryan presses his face into Shane’s chest, desperate for warmth.

“Wow, last-naming me and everything!”

“C’mon, guys, let’s get this over with, I want to be in my bed,” TJ says from the driver’s seat.

“You heard the boss, let’s go,” Shane says, quickly pressing a kiss to Ryan’s forehead before extricating him from his body. Ryan keeps them linked by holding Shane’s hand, before remembering that they have to record the intro to the place, which means that Ryan’ll have to let go.

They start filming at the edge of Lake Superior, where Ryan wants to have a moment of respect for all the people buried in it.

After a minute, Ryan says, “Let’s try calling out to them.” 

Shane nods. Ryan pulls out the spirit box, and they begin.

“Hello, if there’s anyone out there with us right now, I’m Ryan, this is–” Ryan hesitates, then, “–My husband, Shane. What’s your name?”

Silence. The radio chatter continues.

“Can you tell us how you died?”

The spirit box continues its white noise, then,  _ -ks _ .

“Axe?” Ryan repeats, raising his eyebrows. He looks around them, out to Lake Superior, the snow, the sky. “You got killed by an axe?”

“Who killed you?” Shane tried.

_ Hr. _

“Her?” Ryan repeats.

“Hair?” Shane jests. He’s chuckling.

“Shane,” Ryan admonishes.

“Hey, I can hear things from the spirit box, too, you know.”

_ Ww-dw. _ A beat.  _ SwaiDr. _

“Widow Swader! Dude, oh my God!” Ryan says, excitement coursing through his veins. He nearly drops the spirit box out of his surprise. Shane cackles at his display.

“You doing alright there, babe?”

“Shane, holy shit!” Ryan is practically bouncing on his feet, then sudden horror flushes his face. “Oh my God, Shane, Shane, this is! This is!” He stops, and stares at the lake. They made contact with a ghost. A married ghost. Is he reaching out because they’re married? Does he want to commiserate? Is this a warning? He doesn’t want to die, here, of all places, just because of a ruse that’s proven to be effective.

Shane reaches out a hand to him, quietly, “Hey man, hey hey hey, calm down.” He pulls him in for a one-armed hug, and Ryan slowly unfreezes, tries to not let his brain eat itself. When he thinks Ryan’s okay, Shane pulls away, but holds onto his hand, pulling him away from the lake’s edge.

“Let’s go to the house.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

As they tredge back into the main town, Shane stops and breaths, takes a look around. Ryan’s arm is pulled back, and he stumbles back to where Shane is.

“What?”

“Look at nature, baby. Look,” Shane says, pointing up. Ryan looks up, and sees the blanket of stars above. He catches a few shooting stars, heart making wishes his mind doesn’t seem to know about.

“This entire scene is gorgeous, this is like something out of a movie, look at how the snow makes everything look,” Shane continues.

“Babe, I’m freezing my balls off,” Ryan says.

“You Californians can’t appreciate nature at its prime because of the temperature being a few degrees lower,” Shane says, tutting to himself and shaking his head.

“Whatever, as if you’re doing any better,” Ryan retorts as he pulls Shane along. He doesn’t catch Shane’s warm smile.

Right off the bat, Ryan doesn’t like the vibes of the house. The second he steps inside the house, his grip on Shane’s hand tightens.

“What’s wrong, hon?”

“I know I say this a lot, but I really don’t like how this house feels,” Ryan explains, eyes darting around as he inches inside.

“Yes, you do say that a lot, but the good news is that since this was closed, and had its own set temperature, the vibes you’re feeling are probably the cold that we just let in,” Shane says oh so matter-of-factly. He pulls Ryan deeper into the house, and now they’re in the living room. Ryan is still frowning.

“How about we try to contact her here? You think that’ll help you with the vibes, or something?” Shane asks, rubbing his thumb over Ryan’s purlicue. Ryan thinks about it, and nods.

“Yeah, let’s do it.” He clears his throat, then says loud and clear, “Hello! I’m Ryan, this is my husband, Shane. We’re here to communicate with Priscill Swader, the lady who used to live here.”

No response. The snow is falling thicker outside. Ryan turns on the spirit box, its chatter disrupting the silence. Shane scans the room with his camera.

“We heard that you, uh, killed lots of guys in your heyday,” Ryan tries.

“Heard you like ‘em married!” Shane exclaims. At that, Ryan’s lips turn up a bit.

“Yeah, we heard that you liked them taken. Off the market. With a ball and chain at home.”

“Well, boy, do we have a surprise for you! If you didn’t notice,” Shane lets go of Ryan’s hand to flaunt it around the room, “ _ We’re _ married!”

“Two married men, in your living room!” Ryan joins in, waggling his left hand as well.

“Two married men… married! To  _ each other! _ ” Shane says, suddenly taking Ryan’s hand again and swinging it wildly between them.

Ryan cracks a laugh. “Bet that threw you off, didn’t it?”

“Why don’t you show yourself and kill me with your axe, huh, Priscill?” Shane taunts, now stalking around the room, Ryan in tow. “What kind of name is Priscill Swader for a murderer, huh? Come on, Priscill, axe me! I’m a married man!”

“Two for one special with us ghoul boys!”

They eventually stop running around, and wait for an answer. Nothing.

“Coward! I respect a weeklong expired bloodwurst left in the sun to rot more than you!”

“Jesus Christ!”

They decide to do their individual sessions in the storage area in the house, where it was reportedly where Priscill would prepare the bodies she killed before throwing them into the lake.

The entrance is blocked from inside the house, something about rotten wood and not wanting to disturb it any further than nature already had, so they have to enter through the side door, which means trudging through several inches of snow, while the snow is still falling, into an old, dusty, glorified garage.

Shane seems to be in his element, surrounded by so much snow. He walks easily, and doesn’t seem to mind the snow that keeps coming.

When he reenters the house, he stomps on the ground, shaking the snow off of himself. Ryan dusts off the snow he hadn’t managed to get.

“How’d it go?” he asks.

“Well, sweetie, I’m not gonna lie to you: there was absolutely nothing in there aside from cobwebs and spiders.”

“Fantastic, hopefully my brain won’t die,” Ryan says as he makes his own way to the storage room. He sinks slightly into the fresh snow, and tries to make the same steps Shane had made, but Shane’s stride is just too long for him. Eventually, he makes it into the storage room, and finds it incredibly dark.

“Wow! I can’t see shit!” He fired up the spirit box, and began his session.

“Hello, my name is Ryan. My husband was just in here a while ago. I’m sure he said some things that you didn’t like. He’s very sarcastic that way, but I stopped trying to change that a long time ago.”

He walked forwards a bit, feeling out the room.

“Uh, if Priscill is in here, I have this device that’ll let you communicate with me better. So: is Priscill here?”

He listened closely to his surroundings, and the spirit box crackled in a voice-like manner.

“What? Can you repeat that?”

_ I’m here. _

Ryan’s eyes went wide. “I’m here? You’re here? Can you say your name?”

_ Pri-scill. _

Ryan’s heart starts beating rapidly, and he stops walking around.

“Priscill? Priscill Swader? If that’s you, can you repeat my name?”

No answer this time. Ryan is starting to sweat.

“Priscill, if you’re here with me, can you tell me how many people you killed?”

No answer here either. Ryan can beat a horse at sweating now. He feels very cold all of a sudden, and he’s terrified of turning around. He feels a shiver down his spine.

_ You h-re. _

You’re here? Ryan doesn’t want to question her any further. Fuck, why isn’t Shane calling him yet?

The seconds pass by, and he’s aching to leave. He doesn’t want to be here anymore. He’s breathing so hard now, the pressure in his ears building until he can only hear his heartbeat. He’s stuck to the floor, and Shane hasn’t called to him yet, why hasn’t he called to him yet, where is Shane, where is he, where is he–

Ryan screams when he feels something touch him. He jumps up, sure that his heart’s gonna burst out of his chest, then that same thing is holding him so close, something takes his chest camera, he’s pressed up against something…

Shane’s whispering to him now, his voice soothing in its tone. Ryan can’t stop trembling in his arms, and he’s pretty sure he’s crying now.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got you, I’ve got you,” Shane repeats, slowly walking them out of the room. Ryan stumbles over his feet and onto the snow, but they slowly make it back inside. Mark turns off the camera, and gives them some space. Shane rubs his back, letting him get it out. Ryan can only clutch at him, wants to keep feeling his solid body under his hands. He doesn’t want him to let go.

Eventually, his crying subsides, and now he’s trying to breathe normally again. Shane doesn’t say anything at all.

Ryan steps back, but stays in Shane’s arms.

“What’s up, Ryan?” Shane whispers.

“I’m okay now,” Ryan says, voice stuttering a bit.

“Yeah?” There’s real concern in Shane’s eyes when Ryan looks up at him. He’s surprised to see that Shane looks very shaken up.

“Yeah,” Ryan breathes. “Yeah, let’s get this over with.”

“You sure? We can just stop here.”

“No no, let’s get it done. I want to finish this.”

Shane nods, not convinced. “Okay. Whatever you say.” He seems to hesitate before leaning in to give Ryan a kiss on the forehead. That nearly gets him crying again, so he just nods and leaves Shane’s embrace.

“I felt like I was being watched, or stalked,” he tries to say.

“It’s the winter darkness. It gets you thinking or feeling things,” Shane says, but there’s no real belief in it.

Ryan grins at that. Shane is trying to center him again.

“Winter darkness, huh?”

“Yep, it’s a real doozy.”

After exploring the rest of the house with a now less-enthused Ryan, all that’s left to do is sleep the rest of the night in Priscill’s old room.

Shane pulls him to the side, worry creasing his brow. “Sure you still wanna stay here?”

Ryan does actually feel a little better, thanks to their ritual ribbing of each other. “Yeah, I’m good.”

Shane nods. “Okay.”

Mark leaves the tripod ready for them, and leaves, eager to get back to the car and into his hotel room. When the door closes behind him, the house is awash in silence. The snow piles higher outside.

“Ry, go change, I’ll wait,” Shane says, already unpacking his overnight backpack. Ryan reaches for his own bag, then stops to think. The bathroom is right across the hall, and he can shout if he needs anything. Shane’ll be here, waiting for him. But that feeling of being watched, hasn’t shaken off yet.

“Actually, can you wait for me, outside the door?” he asks, clutching his pajamas to his chest. Shane looks up from where he was connecting his phone to his charger, and nods. He quickly gets up, and follows Ryan to the bathroom, where he waves from the doorframe. Ryan closes the door, hears Shane lean against it, and takes a breath. He turns to set his PJs on the sink, and when he takes off his shirt, he feels that sudden chill again. He’s goosebumped all over, and quickly grabs his clothes and yanks the door open. Shane stumbles backwards a bit before he holds onto the frame.

He turns to look at him, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m gonna change in our room. Can you stay?” Ryan explains as he walks back into their room.

“Sure thing,” Shane says. He sits back on the bed, and shimmies until he’s laying down, and grabs a pillow and puts it over his face. Ryan’s heartbeat settles down, and when he finishes dressing, he shakes Shane’s foot.

Shane takes the pillow away, then asks, “Do you want me to change in here, too?”

Ryan’s surprised at that, but realizes that he does, so he nods. He sits down, and takes the same pillow to bury his face in. He feels when Shane gets up from bed, hears him change into his PJs, and feels the bed dip once Shane’s settled back in.

Shane pulls the pillow from under him, and lightly swats him with it. The sudden action startles a laugh out of Ryan, and he grabs the other pillow and starts hitting Shane with it. Soon enough, they start pillow fighting, getting up and bouncing around, up and over the bed.

Ryan hits Shane square on the face, and makes him take a step back with the force of it. Ryan’s giggling, trying to ask if he’s okay, when Shane suddenly tackles him, sending them down onto the bed. Ryan’s still laughing while he tries to get out of Shane’s very weak hold, and manages to slip out only for Shane’s limbs to be everywhere, and crowd him. Shane crawls over him, keeping him down, but he can only giggle when Ryan half-heartedly pushes his face away. They try to calm down, but every few seconds they’re hit with another wave of laughter. Shane eventually rolls away, and grabs Ryan’s hand to kiss, then lets it fall away.

They eventually sit back in bed on their respective sides, passing some time in amiable silence, scrolling through their phones. Every now and then, they show each other a meme, and sneak pictures of each other. Eventually, Shane sets his phone down, and looks at Ryan.

“Good night, sweetie, see you in the morning,” he says, leaning in to kiss Ryan’s cheek. He lays down, turns on his side, tucks the three blankets up to his chin, and that’s that.

Ryan thinks to keep scrolling just a bit more, hearing Shane’s breathing soften. He takes a picture of Shane’s backside.

He thinks all is fine, that they’re not gonna violently die here at the hands of a ghost and her axe, but just as the thought ends, he feels a shiver go down his spine. Something’s watching him. Some _ one’s _ watching him.

He quickly shuts off his phone, lays down and covers himself with the blankets.  _ Maybe if it can’t see me, it can’t hurt me _ , he briefly thinks, before discarding that thought. Only one other thing to do: relying on his time-tested proven strategy.

Ryan scoots close to Shane, and shakes his shoulder.

“Shane,” he whispers.

“What,” comes the gruff reply.

“Cuddle me.”

“Why,” Shane asks, but rolls around to lay on his back all the same.

“To keep the ghosts at bay.”

“Okay.”

Now with permission, Ryan scoots until he’s pressed up right against Shane, who shifts onto his other side and wraps an arm around him. Ryan curls himself around him, hooking his legs under Shane’s, placing his hands under his shirt.

“Your hands are  _ very _ cold.”

Ryan grins to himself, settling in comfortably under Shane’s chin.

It was, surprisingly, an easy night. They both slept well, and when Ryan woke up, he felt very well rested.

That easiness soon faded when he was waking up, eyes still closed, and remembered where he was. He was on his side, Shane’s arm still wrapped around his middle, and Shane’s face tucked right behind his neck. Ryan realized that his neck was wet, and felt mildly grossed out.

He’s in Priscill Swader’s house, in her room, in her bed.

Ryan shakes Shane’s arm. He rouses somewhat, and sleepily grunts in question.

“Shane?” he whispers.

“Mhmm?”

“You awake?”

“Guess so.” Shane’s breath is on his neck, making the wetness feel somewhat worse.

“This is gonna sound really stupid…”

“Don’t worry, it’s prolly nothing I haven’t heard yet.” Shane sounds a bit more awake.

“Okay, so… can you check the room?”

“For?” Shane retracts his arm from Ryan to rub at his face. Ryan notices that their legs are still entangled together, just stretched out some more. He’s embarrassed to say why, and it seems that Shane picks up on it, so he leans up, and looks around, pressing a kiss to Ryan’s neck and dropping his head back on the pillow.

“Ghost proof as always,” he says. Ryan can breathe again, and opens his eyes. Safe, just like Shane had said.

Ryan gets up, prying himself from Shane, and starts packing up his stuff.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here, man.”

“Okay,” comes Shane’s reply.

They wait for TJ to come pick them up near Lake Superior. It really was a sight to behold, the waves coming in strong for the wind. They got some pics in before TJ honked at them.

On the drive back to Maple Hill, they stop two times for gas. In the first, Ryan buys some Planters cashews, and in the second, Shane gets some gummies. They keep trying to throw their respective snacks into each other’s mouths, and TJ truly threatens to turn the car back around and leave them in Grand Portage if they don’t stop making a mess back there.

In Maple Hill, Ryan, Shane, and Mark wait in the car for TJ to check out from the hotel. He comes back, bags in hand, and they hit the road once again.

TJ takes care of the car, and soon, they wait for their plane to arrive at their gate. They still have a lot of energy left, so they decide to play hide-and-seek for as long as they can get away with. The game only lasts fifteen minutes because one of the security guards gives Shane and Ryan a wry glare when Shane finds him and scares him. When they come back to homebase, Mark slap Shane’s shoulder, saying, “Nice going.” TJ can only drink so many coffees.

When they do eventually board the plane, TJ tells them good night, and if they even think about interrupting his beauty sleep, he  _ will _ cry. Mark looks over at Ryan and Shane, who can only giggle.

A few movies later, their plane lands in LA, and they pile back into TJ’s car, who leaves them off one by one.

“Good night, dad!” they all call out to him.

Shane has always joked about them bringing back home a spectre or a demon, and every time, Ryan’s brushed him off, surreptitiously going down to the nearest church to get cleansed just in case.

This time’s different, because he actually does feel like something could be breathing down his neck here. He looks up mass times, decides to go to the 6:30 one. He prays, he communes, he drinks. He finds the father afterwards and asks for a blessing, then on his way out, comes across two nuns, and asks them for a blessing as well. He looks around to make sure no one sees him drinking some of the holy water, and goes on his way back home.

His house is so empty with just him in it. Ryan turns on the TV, quickly unpacks and gets into a new set of PJs.

He feels safer now, but. There’s one piece missing.

Ryan ends up facetiming with Shane for a good couple of hours before they’re both nodding off in bed. When they bid each other good night, Ryan smiles when he hears the sleepy tenderness in Shane’s voice.

He goes to sleep, and when he wakes up, he doesn’t have any nightmares.

Ryan calls Shane over to stay with him when he’s scrubbing through all of their material. He doesn’t want to face it alone, even in a controlled environment like his room. Shane comes over and plays on his DS, while Ryan’s leaning back in his chair, looking at the screens in front of him. Every now and then, he’ll look over where Shane’s splayed on his bed, focused on his game. He looks over at the TV, makes sure it’s still on.

There doesn’t seem to be much visual evidence, Ryan’s been checking all the shadows and odd movements he can. What he  _ does _ pick up on is an entirely different phenomenon, and that is that Shane and he… seem to be very natural at being a couple.

Their interactions haven’t really changed at all, save for the occasional pet names they called each other by, and even then, they didn’t sound forced. As if the words were always there.

Ryan feels himself warm up as he starts noticing how much they look at each other. Video Ryan seems to always find his gaze back on Shane, a soft smile plastered on his face. And as for Video Shane, he looks at Video Ryan with such a fondness that it makes Real Ryan’s heart ache. He looks over at Shane, and feels his heart ache again when Shane happily shouts at his DS, pumping his fist in the air. The momentum makes him lift up a bit from the bed, and he falls back down in a less comfortable position, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

Ryan’s watching Mark’s camera footage now, from when they’d begun their individual sessions. Video Ryan is fine, a bit nervous, but when isn’t he? It’s when he’s watching Video Shane that the ground falls from under him.

Shane is cracking jokes with the camera, talking about how there’s nothing in the shed except for dozens of spiders, something that he’s sure will freak Ryan out. He doesn’t look like he’s feeling any particular way, save for, Ryan guesses, lightly humored by it all. He checks his watch towards the end of Ryan’s session, and when it hits the five minute mark, he yells out the door to Ryan that time’s up.

When Ryan doesn’t immediately get out of the storage room, Shane looks back at the camera, wryly smiling.  _ “Think he finally caught a ghost in there?” _ Shane taps his knees, checks his watch again. His smile slowly falls, brow creasing in worry. He looks at the camera again, but doesn’t say anything. He lets two minutes pass by, shaking his leg and looking visibly worried, the most Ryan’s ever seen him, before getting up and heading down to the storage room. When Shane brings them both back, he shoots Mark a look, and the camera looks to the ground and shuffles away.

It’s here when Ryan decides to call it a night, and get back to it later.

He quickly exits out of everything, and shuts down his computer. He goes to stand near the bed, looking down at Shane. He eventually rips his gaze away from his DS, and raises his eyebrows in question.

“Wanna sleepover?” Ryan asks.

“Yeah,” Shane answers.

Ryan’s not going to let his continued scrub-through of the very obvious tells of romantic relations get to him in his own office. This is a professional setting, and he absolutely refuses to think about the way that Shane kept kissing him all over in the fucking log house.

Ryan, of course, lets it get to him enough that he decides to go across the street for some ice cream to cool down. He feels hot all over, remembering where Shane’s lips had been, where his hands were. He nearly drops his cone when he realizes that they were lined up against each other in bed.

When he sees Shane again, he decides to bring it up, perhaps just for the sake of getting it out in the open.

“Hey, big guy,” he says. Shane nods, smiles at him.

“Hey, man, what’s up?”

“Nothing much, went out for ice cream,” Ryan says, raising his cone.

“I can see that.”

Why is talking to him so difficult now?

“You know, actually, I had wanted to tell you something that I thought was kinda interesting…”

“Oh yeah?” Shane asks, leaning back in his chair.

“Yeah. It’s, uh, it might not be a total surprise, but in the videos, we actually make a pretty convincing couple.”

Shane slowly nods. “Really?”

“Yeah!” Ryan leans against the desk. “Nothing obvious, but there were little moments that really… sold it.”

“Uh huh,” Shane says, crossing his arms and looking at the table, but Ryan knew he was still listening.

“Yeah, you know, obviously the pet names helped out. Sometimes you’d kiss my hand, which I actually thought was really sweet. And you were also always hugging me, which I appreciated.”

Shane takes in a deep breath.

“Not to say that I left you hanging, I should give myself credit as well.” Ryan nervously chuckled. He could see Shane grin to himself.

“Yes, you were always throwing yourself at me.”

They snickered at that.

“Was I, really? ‘Throwing’ myself at you?” Ryan looked to Shane, and saw him take a moment to consider it. He ran a hand through his hair.

“Uh… actually, not really. I know you were scared a lot, and I didn’t actually think about you clinging onto me that way. Like, I get it, you know?” Shane explains, finally meeting Ryan’s gaze. “You needed a friend.”

Ryan’s spirits lift at that.

“You did, you know? You helped calm me down a lot.”

Shane gives him a small smile, and reaches for his free hand, rubs his thumb on his knuckles. “I’m glad to hear it.”

They hold hands, look at each other for a moment. Ryan surprises himself by realizing that he wants this moment to last forever, thinks he can see something similar in Shane’s eyes, then his phone beeps at him. Time to get back to work.

Shane squeezes his hand one last time before letting go.

“Hello and welcome to another edition of Buzzfeed Unsolved: Postmortem, a show where we answer your most pressing questions about the most recent episode of Buzzfeed Unsolved, which was the Grand Portage Murderess. All the questions we’re answering today came from you guys via our Buzzfeed Unsolved Facebook page, our Buzzfeed Unsolved Instagram page, or directly on the video–”

“On BUN!” they say together.

“Man, what an episode, huh, Ryan?” Shane asks, looking towards him. Ryan shrugs his shoulders, exaggerating his wincing face, getting a chuckle out of Shane.

“Yeah, you had fun there,” Shane says.

“So much fun,” Ryan mocks.

Shane nods, clears his throat, pushes up his glasses, and begins, “Anyways! Let’s start this off with Gramtown, baby!” He brings up his phone to read off, saying, “Here’s from eagerEcphasis,” he stops and knits his eyebrows together in confusion, “Uhh, ‘Congrats on finally getting married!!! Took you guys long enough to tie the knot! Xoxo,’ and lots of heart emoticons.

“Yeah, there were, like, fifty million messages congratulating us on our nuptials,” Shane comments. Ryan snickers, and nods.

“Yeah, the day after we uploaded the video, I woke up to thousands of mentions on Twitter!” Ryan chimes in. Shane tries to say something else, but he erupts in laughter, making Ryan laugh as well. Their faces are getting red at the suddenness of it.

“I’m–” wheeze “This is–” wheeze “I only took a picture of this one comment because–” yet another wheeze. Shane brings his hands up to wipe at his eyes, then holds himself and tries to get himself under control. “Eager Ecphasis’ comment was the only one I could take a decent screenshot of, because the comments just kept rolling in and in,” he finally manages to say, demonstrating the influx of messages with his thumb scrolling an invisible phone.

“I believe you! I kept getting calls on how come I didn’t invite them to our wedding,” Ryan adds.

“Really? I got asked if we eloped.”

“Eloped?!” Ryan asks, truly amazed at the thought.

“Yeah, something about drive-thru chapels or whatever.”

“Aren’t those in Vegas, though? We were nowhere near Vegas.”

“ _ Are _ there drive-thru chapels in Minnesota?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Hmm,” Shane hums, and shrugs.

They take a moment to remember that they’re supposed to be answering a comment.

“Everyone’s so invested in this…” Shane whispers.

“Yeah, anyways, just to clarify,” Ryan begins, looking at the camera now. “We got playground married.”

“Yeah,” Shane says, sagely nodding.

“Our camera guy, Mark, married us.”

“He ain’t got no credentials.”

“None.”

“Zero.”

“ _ Nada. _ ”

“Also, by the way, I’ve been meaning to ask: where did you get those rings?” Shane says, turning to look at Ryan.

“Oh, off Amazon,” Ryan answers, turning to look at him as well.

“Really?” Shane’s eyebrows shoot upwards.

“Yeah, eleven dollars each.” They start giggling at that, with Shane saying, “Eleven dollars?? That’s what our relationship is worth?!!”

“Yeah! What, did you want me to really go down to Jared and pick out two 24 karat gold rings with inlaid diamonds or something?” Ryan demands, voice going higher as he goes.

“No, it’s just that – eleven dollars, are you serious?” he asks, incredulous.

“Yeah!”

Shane shrugs. “You should’ve gone to Jared.” Ryan looks at the camera, desperately sighing.

“Anyways!”

“Yeah! Let’s move on,” Ryan says, then, “From Facebook, Sascha Hass: ‘I’m from Minnesota, and I’ve heard several legends about this place.’ That being, Grand Portage. ‘One of the things I’ve heard is that sometimes you can see the spirit of Priscill walking along the road to Maple Hill with a bloody axe in her hand,’” here Ryan nods, “‘Another legend I’ve heard is that you’re able to see Amos standing above the Lake, looking in the direction of his former house. Just thought you might like to know!’”

Ryan stares at the camera with a manic smile. “Thanks, Sascha! I hate that! That means that the restless spirit of Amos Swader was looking at us yelling in his house!”

“Hey, that also means that if, you said that Priscill was watching you, then her husband was too!”

“I hate this, I hate this, I hate this so much!” Shane laughs at his face.

“From Instagram, its.always.blue says: ‘could u guys see the milky way from up there?’ Surprised face emoji.”

“Oh, yeah, we definitely could,” Ryan says. He looks off at the distance, remembering seeing all the stars in the sky.

“Definitely.”

“It was very beautiful,” Ryan assures.

“I took a bunch of photos of it, actually I had originally wanted to camp outside just to, just to bask in the beauty of it all, because, Grand Portage? Is  _ amazing _ ,” Shane points out.

“Yeah.” Ryan also took lots of pictures. He realizes that he took a lot of pictures of Shane as well.

“And, the snow? The stars? The very gentle cool wind?” Shane continues, listing off on his fingers.

“The snow that was falling,” Ryan adds, zoning back in on the conversation.

“Yeah, I was like, I gotta be one with nature here,” Shane says, spreading his hands.

“Yeah, but!” Ryan says, smiling because he knew he’d ruin the nice memories. “It was freezing outside, and I’m pretty sure there was a real chance of getting hypothermia if we didn’t have the adequate equipment for camping out, which we didn’t have.”

Shane makes a mocking face, squinting and making his mouth small. He waved Ryan off. Ryan huffs, looks away, shakes his head, mutters “Fucking boy scouts.”

“This comes from YouTube,” Ryan reads, “From Jody Kitabayashi –”

“Oh! Cool name!” Shane interjects.

“Yeah, it really is! Jody Ki-ta-ba-ya-shi.”

“Sounds like an anime protagonist. Like, the samurai who came to save the town.”

“Oh yeah! She’s got, like, this cool-ass sword that she inherited from her father–”

“Is she avenging his death? Is that why she has the sword?”

“She could be going from town to town, looking for her father’s killer, so that’s why she keeps saving all the towns.”

“Does she have friends?”

Here, Shane falters, squawking a bit at the sudden thought. “I would sure hope so!”

“Like a little animal companion? A trusty sidekick?”

“...Is the trusty sidekick  _ the _ animal companion?”

“No, I was thinking of the trusty sidekick being like, the funny guy of the group, since Jody the samurai is very dead set serious about her mission.”

“So, could the animal companion be the smart one of the group?”

Ryan starts wheezing. “So just a dog that can talk?”

“He’s old, too, you know how dogs gray around their snouts?”

“And he’s wearing glasses?”

“Yes! He’s wearing glasses!”

They take a moment to bask in the glory of their anime plot, and then Shane asks, “What was the question?”

“Oh yeah!” Another round of laughter as Ryan pulls it up on his phone again. “So, Jody Kitabayashi says: ‘How did you guys find out about this case? This seems so out there, I’m really impressed.’ Uh, a bunch of research!”

“Yeah, it was, we were reading through  _ so _ many books about urban legends, local crimes, et cetera.”

“It was a lot, we also scoured the internet for urban legends like these.”

“Sometimes we get tips from comments like Sascha’s, and we look it up.”

“Yeah, it’s a whole process of several weeks of research, planning, prep, for a twenty-five minute video that you guys then react to.”

“Yeah! Lots of fun. Anyways, let’s take it over back to Gramtown. beammeupscottie71 says: ‘why was shane so tender in this episode? this is honestly the part that’s most haunting me from the entire episode.’ Thinking emoji, hashtag boogara, hashtag tendershanereal?” Shane then sets his phone on the table, and looks at the camera.

“You know, I asked him that exact thing, I asked Shane why he was so tender with me after we wrapped up,” Ryan said, snickering as he did.

“Look guys,” Shane says, spreading his hands. “I can be a tender guy. It’s a thing that can happen.”

“Not very often, huh, big guy?”

Shane frowns at him, then continues. “Listen, I want you to know that, even though Ryan and I are always ribbing at each other, I do genuinely care for him, and I know when to push and prod whenever we’re on these sets. There’s a time for joking around, and there’s a time to just be there for you friend, you know? Ryan was completely losing it, and I, I’d never seen him like that before, and  _ I _ was getting worried, so I did everything I could think of to calm him down so that I could calm down.”

“You were worried?”  _ About me? _ Ryan wants to add, but holds his tongue.

“Of course I was! You were… falling down on me, you were here–” Shane holds his hand up to his eyesight “–And because of that, I was here–” He lowers it down to his chin “–And that was, that, I.” Shane just sighs, shaking his head. He doesn’t know what else to say, so he opts to grab Ryan’s hand.

“You really scared me there, man.” He looks at him, and rubs his thumb on Ryan’s purlicue again.

Ryan is. Overwhelmingly touched. He warmly smiles back at him, and then remembering where they are, quickly lets go of Shane’s hand.

“Uh, let’s see what else we got,” Ryan says, breaking the moment. “From YouTube, this was sent by Pil Dol: ‘At the 7:02 mark, it sounds like a female voice saying ‘Leave now.’ I think that might be Clara, since the voice sounds different than the one in Ryan’s session.’”

They pull up their video, and scroll until they’re near the mark, and listen intently to the audio from it. Sure enough, Ryan had pointed that voice out, but had only labelled it as [VOICE].

Once the clip is over, Ryan looks expectantly at Shane, who looks, as always, unimpressed.

“Well?” Ryan tries.

Shane shrugs. “There was a lot of wind, and the snow was falling. It could’ve added to the sounds in that house.”

Ryan sighs. “It definitely sounds like ‘leave now’ to me.”

“Of course it does.”

“Maybe Clara was warning us of her mom?”

“If it  _ was _ the spirit of Clara, that’d’ve been nice of her.”

“It’d also mean that she had an idea that her mom killed all those guys. Maybe even that she killed her husband?”

“I mean, don’t  _ all _ people related to killers deep down know their loved one is a killer?” Shane brings his hand to his chin, thinking very hard.

“I’d… guess so. Especially since, that’s her husband that got killed.”

“Yeah, like, ‘Oh, my mom’s visiting, that’s nice!’ And then when Priscill leaves, Clara’s all, ‘Oh… where’d my husband go?’”

“‘Where’s James?’”

“‘My mom leaves… James is gone… I wonder!’”

Ryan laughs at that. TJ cocked his head away from behind the camera, and pointed at his watch.

“Ryan! What’s coming up next week?” Shane asks.

“Next week, we’ll be in one of the most cursed places in America,” Ryan replies.

“Oh, Florida?”

Ryan blinks, looks at TJ, manic smile back on his face. “Oh my God!”

“Wait, I got it?” Shane asks, a sparkle in his eyes. He raises his fists in victory.

“Dude. Retake,” TJ calls out.

Shane and Ryan have to take a moment to get down from giggling, and when they do, Shane gestures for Ryan to say it again.

“Next week, we’ll be in one of the most cursed places in America,” he repeats, not able to hide his wide grin.

“Oh, New Jersey?” Shane asks, also not able to hide his grin.

“A little bit more to the South.”

“Okay. New York?”

“New York’s to the north of New Jersey.”

“Really?”

“Yes!”

Shane raised his arms in mock surrender. “Sorry, I didn’t memorize the American map, I wasn’t aware we were in seventh grade geography class!”

“Anyways, that does it for this week’s Postmortem, make sure to–” Ryan’s usual outro is interrupted, since Shane was copying his hand movements and in his eagerness to poke fun at Ryan, bumped their hands. Ryan looked at their now separated hands, and scolded him, saying, “Hey, c’mon man.”

Shane takes that as a personal challenge, and begins swatting at Ryan’s hands. Ryan triew blocking him with his forearms, but Shane has longer arms, and reaches up to swat at his neck. This, of course, forces Ryan to swat back at him, the two giggling like children at their playfight.

After a few moments, Ryan tries to end their fight, and finish the outro. “That does it for this episode of Buzzfeed Unsolved: Postmortem, make sure you tune in to the next episode and send in your questions through the Buzzfeed Unsolved Facebook page, the Buzzfeed Unsolved Instagram page, or comment directly on the video–”

“On BUN!”

“And maybe you’ll be–”

“We’ll see you at the movies.”

“You may be in the next episode of Buzzfeed Unsolved: Postmortem,” Ryan manages to finish, and when he does, he looks over to check that Shane won’t pull any other stunts on him. When he looks back at the camera, TJ has a very knowing smile on his face, and he feels himself blush at that.

Shane taps the table, and gets up. “Wanna go grab something to eat?”

Ryan startles at that, and looks up at Shane. “Sure. What were you thinking?”

“I don’t know, ice cream?”

“Yeah, okay.”

On the walk over, Ryan feels hot all over. He’s walking next to Shane, but Shane is putting a bit of a distance between them, even when their hands brush. Ryan gets an electric shock whenever they do, and all he wants to do is reach out and hold his hand. The knowledge that it’d be okay to do so keeps circling around in his mind, reminding him that Shane’s always reached for his hand, even today, but he just can’t bring himself to do it.

His phone keeps buzzing, so he turns off his Twitter and Instagram notifications.

When they arrive at Häagen-Dazs, Shane orders a cup of vanilla, and Ryan a cone of pistachio. They loiter a bit inside, then make their way outside.

“We got some pretty good questions, right?” Ryan pipes up, desperate to talk to Shane.

Shane nods, eyes on his scoops. “Oh yeah, they were pretty good.”

Ryan nods, licking the melting rivulets from his cone. “Wild how many marriage-related comments we got, huh?”

“Mhmm,” Shane hums. He starts ambling back towards the office. Ryan follows. Shane hasn’t looked at him since they got their ice creams, and Ryan  _ needs _ him to look back at him. He needs to know what he feels about all this, because Ryan’s starting to get an idea of what his own feelings are.

“Everyone’s saying that we acted very coupley, but I didn’t really think so, what about you?”

Shane just shrugs in response, sticking a spoonful of his ice cream in his mouth.

He’s not looking at him.

He’s not looking at Ryan, and Ryan’s heart is hurting him, because he wants Shane to look at him the way Ryan wants him to.

“Shane, look at me,” he demands.

Shane finally does look at him, but he looks scared, and… hesitant, almost as if waiting for something to happen and not knowing whether it will or not.

“Did it, when we were filming, and we were pretending to be married, did it feel different for you?”

“No,” Shane says in a very small voice.

“No?” Ryan’s heart sings at that.

“No,” Shane repeats, louder this time. “Our marriage was, it didn’t even feel like we were married because everything felt so natural.”

“As if we’ve always been married?” Ryan tries. Shane nods.

“Yeah. It felt like a natural extension of our relationship. It was so easy to call you babe, and honey, and I didn’t even blink when you called me honey either.”

“Like the words have always just been there,” Ryan says mostly to himself.

“Yeah. I also… really liked holding you, close to you. I feel like I should’ve always held you–”

“I fit right in your arms,” Ryan interjects, and Shane shyly smiles at him, blushing a lovely shade of pink that Ryan wants to look at forever.

“I want you to keep holding me,” Ryan admits.

“Really?” Shane asks, stars in his eyes.

“Yeah!” Ryan says, smiling wide. “And I want you to keep calling me babe, and I want to call you babe, and! I want to hold your hand all the time, and I want to keep sleeping in the same bed with you, even when we’re not on the road, because I feel so safe in your arms, and you seem to know just how to calm me down, and I want–”

His small volley of wants is interrupted when Shane reaches for his hand, and interlocks their fingers. He brings their intertwined hands up, so that he can kiss the back of Ryan’s hand. His lips are cold from the ice cream.

“I want that too,” he answers.

They stand there, smiling at each other.

“Can I kiss you?” Shane asks.

Ryan blinks. “Of course!”

Shane takes a breath, giggles a bit, then leans down to press a chaste peck on Ryan’s lips. The tenderness of it all makes Ryan blush hot red, and he brings his other hand to cover his face, but he’s forgotten about his ice cream, and instead smears melted pistachio on his cheek and forehead. Shane laughs at that, and lets go of his hand to reach for the napkins he put in his pocket.

Shane wipes Ryan’s face free of ice cream, and then presses a kiss on his cheek. Ryan gets onto the tips of his toes, holds onto Shane’s shoulder, and finally presses his lips against Shane’s the way he’s realizing he’s always wanted to.

The best part is that Shane kisses him back.


End file.
